Makisexual
by kandora
Summary: With a little help from his friends at Hakogaku, Toudou comes to terms with his feelings for Maki-chan. Kind of.


All that day, Toudou had seemed very much on edge. The rest of the Hakone team hadn't seemed to be paying very much attention to this, but Fukutomi was keen to notice the slightest change on the behaviour of any one of his charges. Now he was keeping a close eye on Toudou, wondering what was wrong.

After finishing practice, they had all agreed to go to a restaurant in town. Everyone else was eating heartily, but Toudou was only picking at his meal, which was an expensive fruit sallad, one of his favourites. It helped keep his appetite in check, or that's what he always said. Everyone doubted if that was the case, but nobody said anything. Fukutomi usually paid for it without complaining. Sometimes you just had to make some little sacrifices to appease the team's very own princess.

Shinkai had already finished his plate full of meat ahead of everyone else, and he was now devouring bananas for dessert. It was healthier than ice cream, at least, and even Shinkai thought he had to cut down on the sweets a little this close to the inter-high.

Toudou raised his head to look at the redhead, intending to tell him to tone down on the munching noises, as he was trying to think. When their eyes met, Toudou gave out a loud gasp. Shinkai stopped in the middle of taking a bite, arching his eyebrow at Toudou who was looking at him strangely.

"What?"

"D-don't make eye contact while eating a banana!" Toudou stammered. He rubbed his forehead in exasperation. "It just looks... wrong."

Shinkai gave Toudou a brief look, the slightest frown, before deciding to just shrug it off and continue to eat. He didn't really care.

Toudou was eyeing the table around him.  
"And what are you all looking at?!" he practically screamed.

Fukutomi cleared his throat, seeming very composed in a stark contrast to Toudou's nervous wreck. "You seem a little high-strung, Jinpachi. Has something happened?"

Fukutomi was just about to reach out - perhaps in order to pat the climber's shoulder in a reassuring gesture - when Arakita suddenly leaned over the table and peered at Toudou's face up close, one eyebrow arched up high.

"Hey, Toudou," he spat. "Would you stop with the stupid dick jokes already? You've been thinking about dicks all day. What gives?"

Toudou's eyes went wide. He was completely scandalized. He almost spat out his coffee, but managed to gulp it down in one go, followed by an intense bout of gagging and spitting. Finally managing to pull himself back together, Toudou stared at his smirking teammate in sheer horror.

"I wasn't thinking about..." he sputtered. "Not about dicks in general! Just... aargh!" Toudou slammed both of his hands on the table and hastily got up from his seat.

"I'll just visit the bathroom," he muttered.

"Nice reaction," Arakita grinned, watching him go.

Izumida stroked his chin. "I wonder if it was my flawless body that finally turned him gay?" he mused out loud. "Not that I can blame him, of course. Who wouldn't be captivated by the sight of my flexing muscles, glistening with sweat after a particularly rigorous workout?" He chuckled, satisfied with the mental image. "Ah, yes. I understand him completely."

Arakita sneered. "Nah. I think you're overdoing it. A cyclist doesn't need to be a bulging mass of muscle. Right, Fuku-chan?"

"To become strong, everyone has to win their own battle," Fukutomi answered gravely.

Washing his face with cold water over and over again, Toudou took deep breaths and tried not to panic. Today, he'd given his customary morning call to Makishima. He'd thought to give Maki-chan some friendly encouragement as he'd complained about a math test yesterday evening when Toudou'd kept pestering him with phone calls.

"So you have that test today? Make sure not to bomb it, then, Maki-chan! I know how much you suck at math," Toudou had added teasingly.

"I love you too," Makishima had replied dryly before hanging up in Toudou's ear.

The comment had been dripping in sarcasm, of course, but it'd still sent Toudou over the edge. Maki-chan saying he loved him... Even if he hadn't meant it, it still made Toudou think of all kinds of crazy things. His own feelings for Maki-chan, for instance. He couldn't believe it hadn't even crossed his mind earlier, even if in hindsight it was completely obvious.

So was he gay, then? Toudou the Sleeping Beauty, Hakone Academy's prettiest and most gourgeous cyclist? High school girls everywhere would be slitting their wrists in agony. But it sure did explain why he never got with any of his fangirls in the first place.

He was having a minor breakdown, not over the fact that he loved Maki-chan, but over the thought that he could be gay.  
Hence all the dick jokes. Reductio ad absurdum. He wanted to confirm to himself that the idea of him being gay was nothing short of ridiculous.

And it was, of course. Toudou spent another seven minutes fixing his hair and washing his face once more. Then, turning back once to smile at his reflection and hold up two fingers as if for a photo shoot, he stepped out. He was determined to put the whole thing out of his mind for good.

To his horror, Toudou heard his teammates laughing about something over at their table. As Toudou hurried towards them, he heard Arakita reading something aloud.

"Maki-chan, you're very special to me and I don't want to lose you, but..."

Laughing, Shinkai took it out of Arakita's hands and read it himself. "Maki-chan's that green-haired Sohoku climber Jinpachi's always calling, right? I knew he was a stalker, but this is just gay," he chuckled, shaking his head.

Toudou stood petrified. They were reading his unsent messages he was just about to go and delete. How out of your whack did you have to be to accidentally leave your cellphone, your lifeblood, into the hands of this pack of hyenas he called his friends and teammates?

Arakita took the phone back while Toudou was still in a daze and started pressing the buttons, reading aloud the message he was writing.

"Maki-chan, there's something I need to tell you something. I think I'm Makisexual."

Toudou heard Shinkai's voice as if from across a great distance. "Dude, you just pressed 'send'! Why'd you press 'send'?"

"I didn't mean to!"

Toudou snapped. He could hear himself screaming, high-pitched and so loud that the entire restaurant turned their head into their direction. He could see a waitress hurrying towards them, his teammates rushing up to him to calm him down, Arakita giving him his phone back, maybe even looking a little apologetic? Toudou dropped to his knees, breathless. Every single pair of eyes in the vicinity was staring at him.

Processing in his brain what Arakita had said, he felt something click into place. Maybe that was it. He was Makisexual. Nothing more, nothing less. For a while Toudou felt something like relief. Until his phone buzzed in his hand to indicate an incoming message, that is. Ugh. This one could take some explaining.

Quickly regaining his composure, Toudou got up, shooting a cold look at Arakita, then retreated back into the solitude of the men's bathroom to formulate his explanation for Maki-chan. 


End file.
